Breathe
by misscam
Summary: When he pulls her down on his lap, she feels only a momentary regret, knowing another aspect of her life is changing forever as she breathes in the scent of him. [CWR, post Grave Danger]


Breathe  
by Camilla Sandman

Summary: _She knows he is giving her time to pull away before the touches become something they cannot ignore in the morning, but she remains, letting her hand find his chest and feeling it rise and fall with every breath. Breathe in, breathe out, breathe in, breathe out... And then he kisses her._ (CWR, post-Grave Danger.)

Disclaimer: Not mine, never was. CSI is CBS's and I merely borrow for a little while.

Author's Note: For Erica, as you asked :)

II

Another evening, another knock on the door and she already knows who it is.

She wasn't sure if she had offered or he had asked, but one evening Warrick had turned up on her doorstep with pizza, extra cheese topping for Lindsey. She'd let him in and watched him watch something entirely forgetable on TV with Lindsey, him not explaining why he was there and she not asking. He'd turned up the next week with a DVD, a few days later with ice cream. He paid almost more attention to Lindsey than her, but she had felt his gaze on her back, lingering and burning. She still hadn't ask and he still hadn't told.

She had gone to see Nick and he would tell her what Warrick wouldn't. That Warrick refused to talk about what had happened but in all other ways be supportive. She wondered, but she was pretty sure she knew then and she's surer now. She knows him.

She doesn't know Nick as well, but she knows he is trying to cope in his own way, but she has seen the strain, feels it echo across her own body. Nick survived, but the touch of death lingered on them all and things would not be the same, for all humans sought illusions of the unchangable.

Sooner or later the illusions came falling down.

"Hey Warrick," she says, opening the door to the darkness outside. He is smiling, but there is exhaustion in his smile. "Lindsey's with mom tonight."

"Oh, right. You told me."

"Yes," she says softly, knowing he didn't forget. "Come in anyway?"

He slips in, her lamps revealing crumbled clothes and a drained face and she wants to hold him, comfort him with her nearness. But not yet.

"You look like hell," she calmly observes.

"Been at Nick's," he replies. "Slept over. He's having nightmares again."

She nods. She can see the echo of the nightmare on his face and knows whatever Nick dreams, Warrick feels.

"Wine?"

He shakes his head, pacing her floor slowly, looking almost like a caged animal. The mind is ever a strong cage and she knows it all too well.

"It doesn't feel like he's getting better, Cath."

"It takes time to heal. What he went through..."

"Yeah, I know, I know!" he exclaims, halting to look at her. "I see what Nick is going through, but I can't make myself wish it was me. I should. I should! I should think about what Nick went through so I can help him, but I think of that box and I feel a tomb and I can't, I can't..."

He slumps down in a chair, staring at his hands.

"Warrick..." she says quietly, feeling the abyss he's facing. Humanity's abyss, guilt and scars and death's ghost. "Why are you doing this to yourself?"

"I'm ashamed!"

"Of being human?"

"Of being less than I should."

"You can't be everything to everyone. Not to Grissom, not to Nick, not to me," she says forcefully. "Warrick, he's alive. And you're trying to help him, but you're destroying yourself at the same time. Let it go. The guilt is not going to undo what happened to him."

"You truly believe that?"

"I'm trying to convince myself of it," she says truthfully, resting a hand on his knee. "You're not the only one who's feeling this."

"Yeah?" he whispers and looks up at her, gaze burning and she knows they're not talking about Nick anymore.

"Yeah," she replies and when he slips an arm around her waist and rests his head against her stomach, it has a certain feel of inevitability to it. Perhaps it was always meant to be so, her and Warrick and the flame.

"If you don't ask me to leave now, I'm gonna do something we both regret," he says, his breath hot against her cotton shirt.

"Stay."

He sighs and for a moment they stay as they are, stillness in the dark. She can feel his breath, his heartbeats under his skin, the slow warm gathering in her blood. When he pulls her down on his lap, she feels only a momentary regret, knowing another aspect of her life is changing forever as she breathes in the scent of him.

He puts a hand to her cheek and she closes her eye to the touch, feeling strangely awake, as if she has awoken from a long slumber. Perhaps they have all been sleepwalking for a while, afraid of what the dawn will bring.

His hands slips down to her neck, his fingers braiding slowly through the hair falling down. She knows he is giving her time to pull away before the touches become something they cannot ignore in the morning, but she remains, letting her hand find his chest and feeling it rise and fall with every breath. Breathe in, breathe out, breathe in, breathe out... And then he kisses her.

She has in her mind imagined a kiss with Warrick a few times, but imagination is fantasy and reality is flesh and skin and warmth. His lips are softer than she imagined, or perhaps he's simply kissing her more gently. His unshaven cheek scratches her, but her cheeks already feel aflame and she cares not.

He shifts her slightly so she straddles him, tuggling lightly at her bottom lip before she parts her lips and the taste of him invades her. She vaguely feels his breath quickening, but she's not sure if it's his heartbeat or hears pounding across her skin.

She breaks the kiss for a moment, letting him pull her shirt up and off. Her skin feels cold when exposed for a moment, before his hands are there, warmer than any cloth. She wonders for a moment if she should help him unhook her bra, but his fingers seem to do well enough on their own.

"Smooth," she whispers.

"You have no idea," he replies, breath hot across her breasts as he brushes his lips against her flesh and she wants to whimper. She clutches at his shoulders as his mouth continues its warm exploration of her skin and she's biting her lip so hard she's surprised she doesn't draw blood.

He lifts her head to look at her, eyes dark with desire and she kisses him forcefully, pushing him back in the chair and tugging at his shirt. He seems amused at her impatience, just watching as she pulls the shirt off and scrapes her nails across his bare chest. She can feel his mucles tense as she wanders lower, feeling a very evident proof of his arosaul.

"Bedroom time, I think," she mutters and clings on as he lifts himself and her up. She wriggles slightly against him and he fixes her with a mock angry stare.

"Cath, if you keep doing that, I'm gonna walk us into a wall."

"Sorry," she smirks, pressing kisses against his neck instead and he groans loudly. She vaguely feels her back brush against a doorway and then she is falling down, mattress greeting her softly and trapping her body between it and Warrick.

"Hey," he whispers, brushing her hair away from her face, looking at her in a way she hasn't felt anyone look at her in a long time. Perhaps not since Eddie, and she almost doesn't remember the good times of that relationship anymore. Almost doesn't want to.

"Hey," she whispers back, tracing the lines of the tattoo on his arm. "Did it hurt?"

"All marks do," he says and she knows the marks he would leave on her would too. But that would be tomorrow and his kiss is softer than morning dew against her skin and leaving a trail of ashes too.

She helps him push her pants off, struggling slightly more with his as his fingers make tantalising circles on her thigh to distract her. She has to close her eyes to the onslaught of his touches, intimate and demanding and coaxing sighs from her lips. Darkness has become white has become fire and if he stops now she will die and kill him and oh... Ohohoh.

"Warrick..." she murmurs, fumbling in her drawer for the condoms she knows is there. "Now. Want. You."

It seems to take forever in a moment before she feels her body greet his invasion. He almost growls and she opens her eyes to his face, tense with desire and restraint and a strange devotion as he looks at her. She reaches up and kisses him, chasing away his restrain, hardly feeling her body any more, only what her body feels. Fire, embers and all the colours of white and she cries out, falling and flying as light breaks within her.

She only vaguely feels Warrick's release, but she hears the name he sighs and she smiles. Hers now. Hers and alive and here. Death might have touched them all, but so did life with every breath.

She rests against him for a while, feeling her body drifting her towards sleep and the light of morning to come. Another dawn, another day, another touch of life.

Breathe in, breathe out, breathe in, breathe out. Life's mark on all the living, on Nick, on Warrick, on her. They're alive, will be alive as long as another breath still awaits.

Breathe in, breathe out, breathe in.

She sleeps.


End file.
